Hand To Mouth

This Blog Currently on Archive Status

This blog is on hold, I am sorry to say. Between graduate school and a full time job (not to mention the old homestead) I just don't have time to maintain it properly. If you'd like to be informed at the time it comes back on line, please post a comment to that effect, with your email.

Mid Atlantic Sustainble Ag Conference Coming Up

With more than than 25 speakers and 40 workshops -- not to mention a keynote presentation by Fred Kirschennman -- the Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture annual winter conference for 2011 promises to be a great event. Here is a copy of the program brochure...check it out, and if you have any serious interest in building a sustainable, regional, profitable food system here in our home of homes, try to make it on January 14-15. Reisterstown is just northwest of Baltimore, and only a short drive from anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic. Along with the annual Forum For Rural Innovations, this one is a must-do.

Forum For Rural Innovation

The 2010 Forum For Rural Innovation is coming up next week. An all day event sponsored by USDA Extension offices in the cluster of VA and WV counties at the northern end of the Blue Ridge mountains. We covered the conference last year, and look forward to doing so again this year.

If you are anywhere near Winchester, VA next Friday, March 19th, try to make it. The conference goes from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM at the Best Western Lee-Jackson Motor Inn which is just off I-81 Exit 313.

A brochure and program can be downloaded here but hurry, registration closes tomorrow, March 12th.

Opportunities In The New Food System

Today brings a great new article on the Huffington Post about the opportunities that the new food system is creating, and why those of use who are involved in it have to re-double our efforts to get that message of opportunity across to both conventional producers, most of whom are struggling even with government subsidies, and consumers, who have been fed a line of PR bull by the industrial ag lobby for years.

Check it out here.

Vermont Farmers Markets

An essential part of any visit to Vermont is the farmers markets. I am continuously amazed at their quality and the abundance of the produce -- especially because I know first hand just how unforgiving the weather here can be (frosts in both early June and September, for example).

Yet here we are, Fourth of July weekend, at a producer-only market (once where you can sell only what you produced yourself) and the crops far surpass what is available at the Shepherdstown farmers market, where the growers have an extra 4-6 weeks of growing time at both ends and where they allow selling stuff that was bought in. I'll post some pictures from there when I get home.

Londonderry VT

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Londonderry is at the head of the West River Valley, at an elevation of about 1200 feet, which puts it in about USDA zone 3b-4a, with annual minimum temperatures of -40F possible (I have a picture of -42F in my own Londonderry garden), an average snow-free date of April 15 and an average frost free date of June 1-10 (I have recorded frosts every month of the year, though). Now, most of these growers are from lower elevations nearby, and some are using unheated tunnels or even greenhouses, but that is beside the point.

Londonderry is just a crossroads in the center of southern Vermont; the town is very small and isolated. Yet this market has grown over the past 15 years from three vendors to almost 30, and one told me this weekend that they expected sales of $1000 on that one Saturday.

Oh, and let's not forget Londonderry's cheesemakers, now winning awards statewide and nationwide. Twenty years ago the valley had only two remaining dairy farmers; now the local cheeses are sought out both by chefs and tourists.

 

Dorset, VT

 

';[    iih[oihoihoih[oih[oi[ih[k Dorset is west of Londonderry, at the southern end of the Mettowee Valley (one of the most picturesque in Vermont and bordering upstate New York) and at a much lower elevation, so it is not nearly as cold. Dorset is also  considerbly larger town, and more upscale, but then its market -- easily now the equal of Londonderry -- is much younger. Some of the same vendors attend, but there are also a number from over the line into the Hoosick Valley of New York.

Of particular note (beyond the general quality of the crops) is the fact that there are multiple bread vendors, all of whom do well, and the potato guy, who is a fourth generation Vermont farmer who saw the potential of specializing to save his farm. This is just the beginning of the season for him, and when I asked him if he was going to have any of my favorite (Blossom, a particularly beautiful spud IMHO) he not only knew the variety but indeed would be digging in them a few weeks. THAT is a local food culture taking root!

But I have to say that my favorite vendor there, because of her marketing savvy is the Filthy Farmgirl, who sells her own artisanal soaps. That woman gets it!

Emerging Issues in the Organic Industry - 1

A new report just out from the USDA Economic Research Service outlines the many issues facing the new organic food system both due to its meteoric growth and the relative retrenchment caused by the current economic decline. I expect be posting multiple times about things I notice in reading it through, but for this post I want to talk just about a comment about organic grains (a shortage of organic grain is inhibiting the growth of both organic dairy, and organic meat).

On page iii, the authors note that:

The low organic adoption rate for grain crops continues to be a bottleneck for expansion of the U.S. organic livestock sector, as organic livestock producers struggle to find reliable sources of affordable feed grains. Only 0.2 percent of U.S. corn and soybean crops were grown under certified organic farming systems in 2005, according to ERS estimates.

All too true. I was hired, back in 2004, to head up a program at the Rodale Institute funded by the USDA Risk Management Agency to address specifically this issue. The idea was two-fold: build an online "calculator" (like the ones years ago that helped you figure out how much you needed to save if you wanted to retire comfortably (forget about that now! <G>) and the ones these days -- I worked on one last year -- that calculate your carbon footprint so you know how much to "give" to grease your guilt over excessive consumption) that calculated a comparative profit and loss from conventional and organic commodity grain production; and (given the even-then obvious difference in favor of organic due to price differential) an online training program to help (the now-convinced) conventional farmers convert to organic production.

The plans were grand: we'd distribute copies of the software to all the FSA (Farm Service Agency) offices nationwide; put CDs next to the cash register in tractor dealers; do satellite training sessions to all the land grant universities. It was a heady time, a time when it first seemed that USDA was going to give some support to organic and actually help get the new organic market going. The grant was in the $3 million dollar range, and, I thought, had the potential to effectuate real change. That was before the bureaucracy (Rodale, not USDA) had its way and choked all the innovation out of the project (known then as FarmSelect). The site today, while still useful, never was allowed to live up to its potential (which I will, perhaps, detail at some point in the future).

So, today, five years later, we are essentially in the same place, according to the authors (capable and supportive people whom I met at the time) and organic grain brokers and merchants are still  sourcing a large part of their production overseas. It is momentarily discouraging, but in the end we go about our business and keep working for what good we see with what vision we may each have.

The burgeoning, once merely alternative food system that this blog tracks is testament to the large -- and growing -- number of people who never gave up the dream and who work today to build a more sustainable, earth friendly food system. We all owe a debt to all of them.

USDA to Survey Organic Farmers

After learning through its standard Ag Census that there were more than 20,000 organic farms in the United States, the USDA has decided to do a specific study of their demographics. If you are an organic farmer, go to the USDA ag census site and fill out the questionaire to be sure you are represented.

If you not a grower yourself, but just want to keep in touch with what USDA learns about the modern organic farmer, stay tuned for the release of the results.

Make Earth Day A Local Food Day

Here's a link to a database of Earth Day activities so that you can find an event near you.

Ah, The Rising Sun At USDA

Maybe it's just the fact that organic is profitable and growing, or maybe its the fact that the new Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, insisted, but  despite reports of some resistance from within USDA, not to mention some pressure from without -- the same kind we faced when we did a test of organic turf on the Mall back in 2007 -- there is plenty of support within federal agencies for greening up. It was just waiting for spring to sprout. In case you didn't know it, USDA already has a farmers market nearby, right at the Metro stop!

Starting things of right was none other than Jeff Moyer, farm director at the Rodale Institute, and new chair of the National Organic Standards Board who piloted the big brown and green TRI truck up to the tarp (gotta keep those sidewalks clean...that's what high profile is all about!).

"The Secretary wanted the garden to be certified organic," said Moyer as the load came down, "so all the inputs -- including compost -- need to conform to the National Organic Program standards." And ready to dig in were none other than the acting director of the National Organic Program, Barbara Robinson and board members of the Organic Trade Association. TRI staff were on hand to help as well.

It's enough to make me run into DC and hand over a resume to those folks!

To read the press release from The Rodale Institute, click here.

For more photos of the big dump, visit the photo page.

Merrigan Confirmed as Deputy Secretary - USDA

Late last week before recessing for a two week break, the Senate Agriculture Committee cofirmed Kathleen Merrigan as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, the number two job! A member of the sustainable ag "dream team," she brings decades of Beltway experience to the job.  From 1987 to 1992, she was an ag committee staffer, and helped craft the legislation that created the National Organic Program (NOP), and then, and from 1999 to 2001 was Administrator of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of which the NOP is a part.

Her most recent position was as an Assistant Professor and Director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.  

It is hard to imagine a more forward-looking,  progressive choice for this position!